My goal is to inform potential law school students and applicants of the ugly realities of attending law school. DO NOT ATTEND UNLESS: (1) YOU GET INTO A TOP 8 LAW SCHOOL ON SCHOLARSHIP; (2) YOU GET A FULL-TUITION SCHOLARSHIP TO ATTEND; (3) YOU HAVE EMPLOYMENT AS AN ATTORNEY SECURED THROUGH A RELATIVE OR CLOSE FRIEND; OR (4) YOU ARE FULLY AWARE BEFOREHAND THAT YOUR HUGE INVESTMENT IN TIME, ENERGY, AND MONEY DOES NOT, IN ANY WAY, GUARANTEE A JOB AS AN ATTORNEY OR IN THE LEGAL INDUSTRY.

Friday, January 1, 2016

News Flash: Admissions “Standards” at ABA Commodes Sunk Even Further in 2015

The Numbers Tell the Story: On December 28, 2015, Dybbuk posted an excellent OTLSS entry that was entitled “Tracking the dramatic decline of LSAT scores at the 25th percentile for incoming law school classes, 2010-2015.” Look at this solid opening:

“The ABA recently published the fourth annual "509" disclosures of accredited law schools, which include the 25th percentile LSAT score of each school's most recent incoming class. As well, National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) Chief Erica Moeser published each school’s 25th percentile LSAT score for the year 2010 in last December's edition of "The Bar Examiner." (p. 7-11) Therefore, we now have five years of LSAT data, covering the five-year long decline in law school applicants (87,900 in 2010 to 54,130 in 2015) and One-L enrollment (52,488 in 2010 to 37,058 in 2015).

The charts below show the distribution of changes in scores at the 25th percentile for classes entering law school between 2010 and 2015 and the number of schools where the 25th percentile score dipped below 150. I also list the schools that lowered their 25th percentile score by four points or more during that period, a dispiritingly long list. I assume that this data will be published shortly at Law School Transparency, but I wanted to get it out there as soon as possible given that the application season is in full swing.

I note specifically the staggering 10-point LSAT decline experienced by Brooklyn Law School (BLS) at the 25th percentile, placing it in a two-way tie for the steepest decline of any law school in the country. BLS Dean Nicholas Allard has led the effort to place the blame for falling bar passage rates on Moeser and the NCBE, rather than on law school admissions practices. Allard’s noxious fog of bluster and accusations can be dispelled with the following three words: "Ten point decline."

A few years ago, Paul Campos wrote a book called "Don’t Go to Law School (Unless)." A possible alternate title for this blog post might be "If You Must Go to Law School, For God’s Sake Don’t Go to ( )." "( )" would include the vast majority of those schools that reacted to the dropoff in applicants by substantially lowering their admissions standards, especially those where the admissions standards were pretty low to begin with. The Deans and unprotesting tenured faculty at these schools have displayed a level of greed, recklessness, and contempt unworthy of professionals.” [Emphasis mine, internal citations removed]

Anyone with an IQ above room temperature can see that ABA-accredited law schools collectively lowered their admi$$ion$ “standards” in order to put asses into seats. This is especially the case, when the cockroaches had fewer applicants.

Welcoming Idiots: Back on August 25, 2015, Paul Campos authored a Lawyers, Guns & Money piece that was labeled “Has the decline in law school applications bottomed out?” Check out how easy it has become to gain admi$$ion to ABA schools – in the span of one decade:

“Since the ABA Section of Legal Education saw fit to approve 17 (!) new law schools over the past decade, increasing the number of ABA law schools by nearly 10%, the ratio of total applicants to ABA law schools has declined even more, from 535 to 1 to 262 to 1. Total 1L enrollment this fall, if we assume that last year’s 80% acceptance rate can’t go any higher, will be around 37,200, meaning that first year enrollment will be down 30% from its 2010 peak, despite a sharp drop in admissions standards. Here’s the percentage of applicants admitted to at least one ABA school over the past ten years:2004: 55.6%2005: 58.6% 2006: 63.1% 2007: 66.1% 2008: 66.5% 2009: 67.4% 2010: 68.7% 2011: 71.1% 2012: 74.5% 2013: 76.8% 2014: 79.8%” [Emphasis mine]

Imagine, for one moment, if nearly 80 percent of those who wished to practice medicine or dentistry gained admission to at least one AMA or ADA accredited educational institution. Who would be thrilled to see a physician or dentist then, people?

Falling Standards Continue: Back on December 14, 2012, Paul Campos authored one of his best ITLSS entries. It was simply labeld “Endgame.” Review the following portion:

“What are the economic implications for law schools of an admissions cycle that ends up attracting only 53,000 applicants? To answer this question, we have to estimate how many matriculants such a cycle is likely to yield. This is a function of two factors: how many applicants end up getting admitted to at least one school to which they apply, and how many admitted applicants actually end up enrolling.

As to the first factor, the percentage of applicants being admitted to at least one school has been rising for several years now:2004: 55.6%2005: 58.6% 2006: 63.1% 2007: 66.1% 2008: 66.5% 2009: 67.4% 2010: 68.7% 2011: 71.1%In other words, law school applicants were 27.9% more likely to be admitted to at least one school in 2011 than they had been seven years earlier.” [Emphasis mine]

Yes, what a “prestigious and honorable profession,” huh?! Hell, the law school pigs are approaching beauty school levels of “selectivity.”

Conclusion: In the final analysis, the law school swine do not give one damn about YOU, the applicant, student or recent graduate. They do not care about the reduced need for attorneys. The excrement-covered rats merely want to admit and enroll as many people as possible, so that they can get their claws on more federal student loan money. Try not to be a chump this new year. Avoid the lure of a “legal education.” No one will be impressed with your TTT law degree, especially when you owe $145K+ in NON-DISCHARGEABLE debt – while earning a paltry salary.

29 comments:

Law school "admissions" has no become a limbo contest-How low will you go?So in anticipation of Nando's post on 1/1/2017, what are the predictions for the entering class of fall 2016? As Nando points out, it's at 71% for the current(fall 2015) entering class that a student got admitted to at least one law school.My prediction? The acceptance rate is above 80% for fall 2016.

Happy New Year Nando!Great job capturing the law school industry in its death throes! Regardless of what the 79 deans have been saying lately, the one uniform measure of law students' potential is and always has been the LSAT. And as the bar exam statistics have clearly demonstrated, as LSAT scores head south, so too has the quality of students. One would think the deans of law schools would be concerned about the declining quality of students admitted, and in the past that would have been the case. A school's future reputation depends on quality admits today!But too many schools have given up on quality. They have given up on even maintaining the appearance of quality. Because they know there is no tomorrow. They know that one day "soon" the Feds will wake up and stop throwing all the risk-free loan money at them. Which is another way of saying "put many if not most of the schools out of business".So in the meantime, many schools are grabbing all the money they can, before the Federal band stops playing.This is the law school industry in its death throes. It's every man for himself. Grab all the money you can, on the way out the door, before the music stops.The sooner it stops the better.

Old Ruster, you are spot on. Scams continue until the supply of money to be made ends. As long as the Feds continue to supply unlimited GradPlus loans to law schools, this disaster will continue. When the money stops, it's going to be fun to watch all the scumbag law deans, administrators, professors lose their jobs. It's a failed profession that has no respect for anything except money. I'm glad I'm out already.

Nando, you sunk to a new low with that photo. I almost lost my Aunt Jemima sausage breakfast. Well, just like law schools, my solo practice has fallen dramatically too. My Schedule C for 2015 will be roughly the same as it was for the last several years, around 37K. Big dough. Professor Paul Campos is spot on again.....

Fuck I thought I saw everything. Last night, I was in the Village (NYC) and got wasted over New Years' celebrations. I live in NJ and drove in but was too sozzled to drive and the cops set up checkpoints by the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels so I decided to leave my car at a parking garage and use my Uber app to fetch a ride home. So a 2005 Lexus picks me up and lo and behold, I recognized the driver as a lawyer who I did a real estate deal with back when the market was hot 2002-2007. He avoided eye contact with me but I knew who he was. Rather than harass and humiliate the guy, I took a nap during the car ride. When we arrived at my condo in Hoboken, I exited the car and said "Nice seeing you again Jeff, Happy New Year." The guy had a mortified look on his face.

So there you have it kids. Jeff X, Esq. has to supplement his income by driving his beat up Lexus on the weekends so he can live a lavish lifestyle. I am sure Jeff's side gig with Uber is paying for the mortgage for the Shore house, and the 35 foot boat.

He is not alone. As a solo attorney, I was doing ok until 2007, about 65K a year. Now, for the several years, I work at a fueling station on the weekends to pay my Obamacare. My family qualifies for Medicaid.

I bet that Jeff X's only source of earned income is as an Uber Driver. Hey Jeff, you could have bought two or three more Lexus luxury cars with all the dough you wasted on law $chool. But hey, just about every attorney in my 1990 class from a regional TT scam School is now out of the practice of law except one gal who was law review, never made partner in a big firm, and now demoted to a small firm.

Back on April 12, 2012, the Atlantic published a Jordan Weissmann piece entitled “The Wrong People Have Stopped Applying to Law School.” Enjoy the following segment:

“Among the many unfortunate developments in higher education over the past decade, one of the most talked about has been the law school bubble. In the heat of the recession, a record number of students decided that it would be a good idea to dive six-figures into debt for a shot at a legal career. Many were lured with utterly misleading job placement stats, as well as a stubborn misperception that law was still a safe career choice, that a J.D. even guaranteed a living wage. Once they graduated, many realized otherwise.

Last month, the Law School Admissions Council (a.k.a., LSAC) published data indicating that the bubble finally seemed to have popped -- a merciful development, as I put it at the time. The number of LSAT tests administered has plummeted over the past two years, and fewer students are accepting admission. This is a happy turn of events. The fewer grads being funneled into an super-saturated industry, the better. (Full disclosure: I used to work for a law firm.)

Yesterday, LSAC released a new bit of evidence that law school has finally lost its luster. Applicants are down more than 15 percent for the year. But there's one problem: The wrong students have stopped applying.

Take a look at the chart below, which shows the number of applications from prospective students in each LSAT range for 2012. Here's the take away: The number of students applying who probably have no business going to law school has dropped the least. The number of students applying who probably should be going to law school has dropped the most.

Here are a few rough rules of thumb on LSAT scores. To get into a top 50 law school, you need roughly a 160, give or take a few points. To break into one of the vaunted Top 14 programs -- yes, this really is all based on U.S. News Rankings...welcome to the industry -- you realistically need something closer to at least a 165. Once you start looking at the super elites, you're talking 170 and above.

And yet, the smallest drop in applications has been among test takers who scored below a 144, the ones least likely to get into a reputable program. Now, some of these students probably need to go to law school for the good of society. I mean that sincerely. A lot of them likely come from less affluent backgrounds, and will likely be willing to work for small firms and government offices that provide services for people who cannot afford to hire Williams & Connolly every time they need legal help. These are your small town lawyers, your inner city lawyers. But just because a few of these potential students need to get a law degree doesn't mean all of them should. And many will likely be heading to J.D. mills that offer them a coin-flip's chance of getting a job after graduation.

Meanwhile, take a look at students in the 170-174 range, which is down by more than 20 percent. What does that tell us? It says that fewer people who are smart and hard working enough to even get that score are probably taking the LSAT, and even if they are, they've heard enough terrible news about the legal economy that they've chosen not to apply.”

In sum, ABA-accredited dung heaps have collectively and individually lowered their admi$$ion$ “standards” – and accepted higher percentages of applicants – even though smarter college grads have decided to avoid law school. Yes, the unethical pieces of trash who operate these “institutions of higher education” are truly concerned about their students and their potential clients, right?!?!

"And yet, the smallest drop in applications has been among test takers who scored below a 144, the ones least likely to get into a reputable program. Now, some of these students probably need to go to law school for the good of society. I mean that sincerely. A lot of them likely come from less affluent backgrounds, and will likely be willing to work for small firms and government offices that provide services for people who cannot afford to hire Williams & Connolly every time they need legal help. These are your small town lawyers, your inner city lawyers. But just because a few of these potential students need to get a law degree doesn't mean all of them should. And many will likely be heading to J.D. mills that offer them a coin-flip's chance of getting a job after graduation."

How does it benefit anyone for some idiot with a 144 LSAT and a TTTT degree to be offering bargain-basement prices? Supposing the kid can even pass the bar, he's just going to ruin some poor dopes with gross legal malpractice. With the standards of the profession in freefall and a proliferation of alternatives, it increasingly doesn't even make sense to retain a lawyer.

Yes, those are truly impressive numbers, huh?!?! Keep in mind that the majority of law school applicants tend to major in soft subjects such as Political “Science,” History, Literature, and Philosophy. Plus, with fewer people applying, most of these lemmings earned their undergrad degrees from garbage univer$itie$.”

I looked up the 2015 Standard 509 Information Report for Third Tier Drake, just to confirm the information you provided. Since the bitches and hags "only" admitted 367 out of 490 applicants, their acceptance rate actually dropped to 74.9 percent, i.e. 367/490.

On page one of that PDF form, full-time tuition at Third Tier Drake is listed as $38,866 for the 2015-2016 academic year. Yes, what a bargain, huh?!?! By the way, full-time tuition plus fees totaled $26,206 in 2006-2007. The cost was $27,756 in 2007-2008. The amount increased to $29,286 for the 2008-2009 school year. I know that because I just looked up my Financial Aid Award Letters for all three years, and I was fortunate enough to keep my full tuition scholarship during my time at the dump.

Look at Conditional Scholarships real quick, from the 2015 Report:

Matriculating students entering with such offers in 2014-2015: 43Matriculating students entering with such offers in 2013-2014: 68Matriculating students entering with such offers in 2012-2013: 71

Reduced or eliminated offers in 2014-2015: 21Reduced or eliminated offers in 2013-2014: 29Reduced or eliminated offers in 2012-2013: 26

Objective

This blog is maintained by a graduate of a third tier law school. My goal is to educate prospective law students about the perils of obtaining a legal education. There are many pitfalls - the debt load, the oversupply of lawyers, the fact that there are not enough legal jobs to satisfy nearly 45,000 annual law graduates, and the reality that the majority of law school graduates will end up with low-paying jobs upon completion of their "legal studies."